DS Audio – The optical machine
The R-880 supports DS Audio optical cartridges. The optical cartridge input in Aavik R-880 is built upon a dedicated direct-coupled floating input stage that allows operation without the conventional DC-blocking cap.
Aavik R-880’s input stage for optical cartridges embeds an adjustable high-pass filter to counter unwanted modulation issues. From there, our RIAA filter and discrete operational amplifier as introduced above. We apply an optional low-pass filter designed to linearize the high frequency response of the optical cartridges.
The addition of high-/low-pass filtering network also means that Aavik R-880 allows for adjusting bass and treble of these cartridges, and to select the setting that suits the individual cartridge model best.